Wednesday I went out for asian food for lunch. Crispy vegetable spring rolls, Edamame, and Sesame chicken. YUM!
I was so tempted to keep a pod and pull out a bean and draw a face on it and bring it home for Landon
We love Memeshiba!!

Click to expand...

Aw, you and Landon are so cute! I still crack up over that story - "dad, I have a secret... OH HAI!"
I haven't made any mameshiba yet (too busy), but I think I'll have to put that on my list.
Landon needs an edamame friend...

Haha, we've never seen that before.
Matt and I have gone through OK on I-40 a bunch of times, but never been up to Wann.
Next time, we might have to take a detour for the photo op.

Thanks, sion!

Day 52: 8/12/12 continued
Christmas Valley, OR to Ram Horn Campground, CA 306 miles

This is one of those endless days...
I can sum up hundreds of miles of slab with a few pics and a couple sentences,
but when the trail is good...
You get a blow by blow account of every rock.

I recognized this spot...
See that rock with the pink dot? It has a little split... I also marked it in the next photo.

In 2010, Matt was so exhausted after wrestling the bike through the trees, over the snow...
(there was no obvious trail at the time, it was covered in snow and logs)
He had a little crash here. Right onto those big rocks in middle.
The arrow shows the path he was riding...

It was so scary.
Good thing neither he nor the bike got hurt!
We would have been seriously screwed.

The trail had a surprising number of landmarks.
Y'know, considering it's all trees and rocks. Nothing man made.
We remembered this big tree...

Last time, it was sort of hanging there...

I was scared it was going to fall and crush us.

It was really neat to ride this trail again.
And so much easier without the snow!

This is another spot where I have a snow pic...

Looking back the other way, 2010

I wasn&#8217;t quite sure this was the right spot, until I checked the rock with the pink dot.
Yep, same rock, opposite direction.

This part - Gah!
It&#8217;s steep. I think you can kind of see it in the photo from 2010...
I took this as I was walking up the hill.

But it just doesn&#8217;t look that bad, going the other direction.
The GoPro doesn&#8217;t capture it very well, but it was no joke.
You can hear us break out the nervous laughter in the video (coming up)

I really had fun finding the same rocks and trees.
With snow...

Without (looking the opposite direction)

With snow...note the fallen tree.

Without (opposite direction).

The schoolbus felt extra wide on this trail.
I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve noticed, but a lot of the trees closest to the road are missing big chunks of bark!

These rocks looked familiar...

Yep, here they are in 2010!
we had stopped to check out some snow...

Okay. I think that's enough for today. I'm so tired.
Gotta figure out what to do about video, too.

I really enjoy the video we shot, but it might be boring for you guys.
This next one is short, but it&#8217;s a nice representation of the trail.

Matt was trying to challenge himself by riding this stuff without putting his foot down at all. :eek1Remember, we&#8217;re on the schoolbus with full bags!

OK - no dabsies!
Hey look, right there in the thumbnail, you can see that tree is missing a bunch of bark!
HD for the rocks!

That trail looks like so much fun! Doubt I could do it 2 up, but I'd have a blast trying it solo. Not quite single track, difficult enough but nothing too scary. Man, I need to scout out some stuff down here. There's gotta be stuff just like that in the Sierras.

Actually, this was some of the most dangerous riding we did all summer.
More challenging than Black Dragon Wash.
More technical than Lockhart Basin.
More difficult than anything we did in BC.

And its not just a short section. This stuff went on and on.

The turns are tight and there are rocks and trees to hit everywhere.
Youll notice Matt was going a lot slower than usual.
Because you just can't go fast. Not fully loaded.
its a tough trail for big bikes.

As far as leg-breaking potential goes, Crane Mtn is right up there with Porcupine Rim.

Oh, this snow photo was taken around that part of the trail (see above )

This little pile of rocks doesnt look like much,
but Matt came close to breaking his leg here.
As we were riding over them, one of the rocks kicked up and knocked his right foot off the peg.
His foot got sucked behind the bike, under the sidebag, just as we started to fall to the right...

If we had fallen over, his twisted right leg would have landed on that rock down there,
with all of our weight on top of it. :eek1

Luckily, Matt goosed the throttle and the bike surged ahead.
he was able to get his foot back on the peg - disaster averted!
It was pretty scary, though.
So close.

The trail was beautiful.

And different.

But, so much work on a big bike, 2up.

I have a little video (including the "Ow, my foot!" portions )
When Matt stops and says, "That was nasty..."
he was really thinking, Mother brother! That was close! :eek1
(right about 1:07)

There's a lot of talking on this video, and sometimes it's hard to understand.

At one point we're laughing really hard (around 1:20).
Earlier in the video, Matt says "What the hell were we thinking, coming up here in the snow??"
and at 1:20,
I say, "What the hell were we thinking, coming up here without the snow??"

At least the snow made everything look friendlier and softer.
The trail was so much pokier with all the rocks exposed...

(Oh well. I guess you had to be there)

Hey, I know these rocks!

We stopped here last time, to check out the snow ahead.

Theres a marker on this tree, too.
We saw them nailed to various trees along the trail.

This next bit doesnt look like much either (what is it with this trail and the GoPro?? )
But it was a mess in 2010.

The bike was overheating here in 2010 and we had thought we were going to have to turn around.
It was slick and muddy and nasty.
Hmmm. Even this photo from 2010 doesnt look bad. :huh
Well, it was.

Matt said the trail would have been easy on his XR650R, but the schoolbus is a handful.
Not that we would have done anything different - I was happy we made it back to Crane Mtn.
We had a lot of fun, and we were glad to ride something challenging...

It just kind of sucks that we need riskier and riskier rides in order to get our jollies.
When we stopped to think about all the "what ifs," we got kind of freaked out.
A broken leg here would have been a lousy way to end a great trip.

Stupid is as stupid does.

But, nevermind that...
We need to get more people up here, to document their rides!
So, you Oregon guys - go up to Crane Mountain and check it out...
Take a friend and a SPOT...

We were done with the rocks now, and onto to the trees.

Again, probably fine on something smaller, but a tight fit for the 990!

Matt thought this was probably more of a quad trail.
Last time, the only tracks we saw were from a quad.

I'll bet they do pretty well with those rocky sections, too.
A lot of the trail is more about picking your way through stuff, not blasting along...
So many things to hit!

Now we were in the sage brush.
OK - there's a little bit of blasting along, here and there...

We stopped at the top and checked out the views.
It was a nice place for some water and a break.

Happy to have all limbs intact!

Looking back the way we came.

Oh, I have a pic of that from last time...

Driver and schoolbus.

Back on the trail...

We still had a long way to go...

More Crane Mtn coming up - the next section is all about trees (and not hitting them)...

I love all the pictures of the trail from 2010 and now! It's really cool to see it both snow covered and not snow covered, not to mention in reverse! Glad your limbs are in one piece! I am a member of the cyborg club

... right there."It just kind of sucks that we need riskier and riskier rides in order to get our jollies.
When we stopped to think about all the "what ifs," we got kind of freaked out.
A broken leg here would have been a lousy way to end a great trip."

... right there."It just kind of sucks that we need riskier and riskier rides in order to get our jollies.
When we stopped to think about all the "what ifs," we got kind of freaked out.
A broken leg here would have been a lousy way to end a great trip."

I could return the voice of reason, Likes like you need it.

Click to expand...

Heh, redog - were you drinking on the job?Just kidding!
No take backs! That thing is all yours.

I love all the pictures of the trail from 2010 and now! It's really cool to see it both snow covered and not snow covered, not to mention in reverse! Glad your limbs are in one piece! I am a member of the cyborg club

We decided to stop and enjoy the peace and quiet for a while.
I really do like this place.

Took a couple pics.

This marks 52 days without using a hairbrush!

Matt read that and said, "you liar - it was waaaay longer than that!" :huh
Haha, he's right. I'm not much of a hair brusher/comber.
This was probably more like 60 or 70 days without a hairbrush...

Our "adventure" bags were looking pretty beat.
I'm always ragging on those things, but it's our fault for taking them on single track.
This one actually looks pretty good here.
Matt did a number on them at the KTM rally in Bend...
when he got home, they were just barely hanging on.

We were getting close to PinkPillion's neighborhood, I think.
Everyone wave to Aimee!

Unfortunately, there were fires nearby. We were worried about you, Aimee.
Glad your family was okay.

We saw a fire engine making a beeline for the hills.

The smoke was so thick, it was hard to breathe.
It must have been horrible for the area residents, dealing with this smoke for days...

We were trying to decide where to stop for the night, when we saw a sign for a campground.
Perfect!
It was down a gravel road...

I don't have my journal handy, but this was Ramhorn Springs Campground.
I found some info - here.

As we were setting up our tent and getting ready for dinner,
Matt said, "did you notice that there's no one here?"
It was weird - there were tents and vehicles everywhere, but we didn't see a single person.

They showed up later. Guess a bunch of them had carpooled into town for dinner.
Others had been off, hiking in the nearby hills.
It was still a strange place.